The
Vlach Quartet has now reached volume
seven in its cycle of the complete Dvořák
quartets and gone, thankfully, are the
days when the only cycle you could buy
was that by the Prague Quartet – good
though that box was, and remains. The
Vlach’s playing is characterised
by warm and genial musicianship. The
primarius is Jana Vlachová, daughter
of the more famous Vlach, and it must
be her anticipatory sniffs that one
can hear from time to time, ones that
are quite unproblematic to me and which
are really only audible on headphones.
Her dramatic and dominant first violin
line is matched by the warmth of Petr
Verner’s viola as those telling inner
voices are explored and resolved in
the first movement, say, of the early
A major. This is no masterpiece but
there are buccaneering moments for all
four players with Mikael Ericsson’s
cello beavering away in the depths.
The Vlach do well by this opening movement
– bringing out its ebullience whilst
minimising to a great degree its structural
failings. The strong slow movement is
densely argued and vibrated and the
Allegro gallops, embracing a delightful
pizzicato-laced trio section strong
on folk-festive spirit. Furthermore
the tender reflection and reminiscence
of the finale is notable for the only
time on this disc that Vlachová
dares some portamenti, to sweeten and
refine still further the sensibility
evoked.

The
companion work, the Op.12, is one that’s
been completed by Jarmil Burghauser
who based his version on Dvořák’s
revision. This was a work the composer
began shortly after his marriage
but laid aside. Some of the first movement
is intact in the autograph (exposition
and most of the development), most of
the second movement, the third movement
and portions of the finale. There is
plenty of characteristic folk-drive
in the opening Allegro though it strikes
me that original would have been more
extended than this reconstruction and
that much of the inspiration is Schubertian
in origin. The slow movement is affectionate
and warmly played, the scherzo lilting
and the finale is a conflation of the
composer’s first and revised versions.

If you’ve followed
the series so far you won’t be deterred
by the reconstructed A minor – indeed
you may positively welcome it as useful
surgery (you certainly couldn’t hope
for a better surgeon than Burghauser
who was a great champion of Czech music
in general and this composer in particular).
The sound is, as I suggested, just a
touch close but it does justice to such
as those winsome exchanges between Vlachová
and second violinist Karel Stadherr
in the opening of the Op.2. Pleasurable
and nourishing listening.

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